In long tally, Wilkerson declared victor
State Senator Dianne Wilkerson was declared winner of a hotly contested Democratic primary after a painstaking, four-hour tally yesterday of write-in and sticker ballots that poll workers in eight precincts had mistakenly failed to record Tuesday night.
By the end of yesterday's count, Wilkerson's lead over her main challenger, Sonia Chang-Díaz, had risen nearly fivefold, to 692 votes.
``I'm very relieved," said Wilkerson, 51, a 13-year incumbent in the Second Suffolk District, which covers Chinatown, Fenway, Jamaica Plain, Mission Hill, the South End, Roxbury, and parts of Back Bay, Beacon Hill, Dorchester, and Mattapan. ``My work is now focused on November, so that we're victorious again."
Despite the sizable increase in Wilkerson's margin after the eight precincts were added, Chang-Díaz said last night that she would not concede.
She said she has hired election lawyer William McDermott to discuss whether to pursue a recount. To do so, she would have to collect enough signatures by Monday.
``We got a lot of new information tonight, but there are still a lot of questions about the standards used for counting the ballots," said Chang-Díaz, 28, a former teacher from Jamaica Plain.
The scene in the eighth-floor City Hall hearing room was reminiscent of the Florida recount in the 2000 presidential election. Both candidates and their representatives sat in the front row of chairs, separated from the counting table by a red velvet rope. Six election officials worked in teams of two -- one checking each ballot, the other recording each vote -- closely watched by dozens of observers, including lawyers, campaign supporters, and reporters.
The recount involved 2,720 ballots from the eight precincts. The election officials recorded write-in or sticker votes on only about half of them. About half of the total 25,423 ballots cast in the district did not have a vote in the Senate race, the city said.
The balloting process confused many voters and both campaigns reported several problems, including faulty stickers that fell off the ballots, and stickers that became stuck in the voting machines.
Chang-Díaz said she was concerned that city election officials did not record more votes in the Senate race and said she wanted to know the guidelines that election officials used in deciding each voter's intent. ``There's really not a clear standard for how to count the ballot," she said.
City election officials have not described in detail what standards they used for counting the write-in and sticker votes.
But Wilkerson's 5-percentage-point lead could make launching a recount a challenge, said Burton Nadler, a Boston lawyer who said he helped the Democratic National Committee during the 2000 Florida recount and watched yesterday's count.
``Overcoming this margin is very difficult," he said.
Wilkerson and Chang-Díaz did not speak to each other during the count, though they sat only four seats apart. After the results were announced, Wilkerson quickly brushed past Chang-Díaz toward the elevators.
Wilkerson called Chang-Díaz's campaign a ``failed strategy" that focused on attacking Wilkerson for mistakes, which include failing to pay federal taxes. ``I ran against an incumbent in 1992 and I never mentioned his name," Wilkerson said. ``I focused on what I could do for the district."
Chang-Díaz said she was proud of her campaign. ``There is nothing this campaign said that was anything but fact," she said.
On Wednesday, a judge ordered the count after the poll workers' mistake was found. City officials blamed human error and the complex primary, in which none of the four candidates' names appeared on the ballot.
Voters had to write in the name and address of their choice or affix a sticker with that information and then mark an oval next to the name. The write-in and sticker votes had to be counted by hand. Poll workers in the eight precincts did not record those results in papers submitted to the city Election Department.
Nadine Cohen, a lawyer with Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights who attended to make sure the count was conducted fairly, expressed incredulity. ``I'm very shocked that so many ballots were not counted," she said. ``Someone should figure out what went wrong; that's for sure."
Nadler said he believed the city responded appropriately. ``The process was transparent, and voters should feel confident their vote has been counted properly in the city of Boston," he said.
When they released the final vote counts yesterday, election officials changed the totals for the two candidates that they had announced Wednesday, taking 17 votes away from Wilkerson and seven from Chang-Díaz, which reduced Wilkerson's lead before yesterday's count to 131 votes. Officials refused to explain the discrepancies, saying that the returns Wednesday were unofficial until they are certified by the city election commissioners, which is scheduled for today.
The earlier tallies did not change for John Kelleher, who ended up with 403 total votes after yesterday's count, or for Samiyah Diaz, who ended up with 302.
One voter who contacted the Globe said she did not receive a sticker and therefore had to write in the name of her candidate, Chang-Díaz.
She said she did not have enough room to write in Chang-Díaz's address.
``Does my vote count?" asked Bonnie Anderson of the South End.
Donovan Slack of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Maria Cramer can be reached at mcramer@globe.com. 